The “Passive Income” Myth

Everywhere you look today you find people promising the ability to earn “Passive Income”. Most claim it can be done with little to no effort, now or int the future. Well, I’m here to debunk that myth right now.

I had a different post almost ready, but decided to shift gears for the week. The topic of various online money making programs has been getting a lot of attention lately, particularly in the context of being deceitful.

As you may know, I’ve been deeply involved with Facebook groups for quite a while now. As a result, I have seen a LOT of these sorts of “business opportunity” programs promising the ability to earn Passive Income. They say things like, “Sign up for Free and make a Million bucks by Next Tuesday”. And sadly, desperate people buy into it every day.

Attrition

Attrition is a big issue with these, not just with members, but the programs themselves. Many don’t last more than 90 days.

This is often intentional. They know it’s not entirely legal, so they pre-launch for 30-60 days then churn and burn through their email list and every traffic exchange or other site where newbies like to hang out.

They quickly pull in thousands of people, get all them out recruiting, and make themselves barrels of cash. Then they shut it down before the FTC/SEC complaints start piling up.

Monetize EVERYTHING

Ever notice how the “Internet Marketing” space likes to add a compensation plan to everything? Every aspect of your business could potentially be monetized.

Traffic sources

Auto responders

Lead capture pages

Hosting

Training

Anything else they can think of.

The message they hope you get is that you can build more passive income streams this way. Know what it says to me?

“Nobody is making a dime out there so let’s take advantage of that. We can get them to use our service by offering to share the profits with them.”

They know most people will make nothing, or very little, from it. It’s a marketing ploy to sell to desperate people. more of that “Passive Income” Myth…

Revenue Sharing

The greatest example of the Passive Income Myth is trying to convince people they can easily make piles of cash just doing what they already do, as long as you do it over “here”. This has been a recurring theme online for a while now. It was big around ’09, faded, and now it’s back.

Have you been around this game long enough to remember PeopleString? What about YourNight or Aaachoo? All of these were “Revenue Sharing” social networks. They all tried to entice people to use them by pointing out how much money Facebook was making, and suggesting that they could share that with their users. So, they found yet another thing to add a comp plan to, your social networks. You can earn money just by interacting (or so they say), and if you recruit others, you will get a percentage of what they earn.

Now we have a few new ones popping up. TSU is the most well known one. They are making all the same claims. This model is completely not sustainable. All of the above mentioned networks are now gone. They no longer exist.

Truth is, very few people will ever make more than a few bucks from it. And, they surely have a minimum amount you have to earn before they will process a payment.

This means most people who earn a little bit from sharing their platform will never actually receive it.

Passive Income: That’s NOT How it Works

The common thread among all these is the promise of being able to make money, usually lots of it, with almost no effort. Let me be crystal clear. That’s NOT how it works. Passive income is ONLY attainable through putting in the work to build it, regardless of what sort of business you choose.

If you hope to join a program, do almost nothing, and retire on a beach with a drink in your hand, you are going to be disappointed.

Sure, there are people who built a business online and retired to the beach. The difference is, they spent years working their butts off to get there.

Show me one person who did that with any program the registered for online.

You can build a business, completely online, and build it huge. Look at Amazon. They started with nothing, lost money for several years, and now dominate the eCommerce space.

The big secret is, there is no secret. Find an idea, and work your butt off until it works. And, know that some won’t pan out and you’ll have to start over.

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